With the failure of mediation, the NHL has seemingly gone for a ‘Hail Mary’ move: asking for a direct meeting between owners and players without the presence of the leadership of either side. What should we make of this request?

First, the offer clearly favours the league over the union. There’s a temptation here to dismiss the players as jocks who don’t understand the finances of the game, but that would be unfair. What seems undeniable, however, is that in a meeting without labour lawyers the owners – older and with a long track record in business – as a group likely have a sizable advantage over the players – younger, and without the same level of success or experience in business. This is a proposal that plays to the NHL’s strengths and the union’s weaknesses.

Second, the offer is likely made with the belief that the players should accept the NHL’s point of view, minus complicating factors. It’s been clear for some time now that the league’s ownership believes that Donald Fehr is misrepresenting it’s message to players. That seems unlikely, given that player representatives have been deeply involved in the meetings, but that’s the belief. Further, Gary Bettman inspires deep antipathy among players – the NHL likely further believes that the same message from a less distrusted spokesman will carry more weight.

This is not a negotiating strategy – really it’s an end-run around Fehr and a move that has the bonus of shifting the message from Bettman to more trusted spokespeople.

Third, if the NHLPA accepts there is at least some possibility that this helps move negotiations. A number of things might come out of such a meeting. The players, some of whom clearly believe there are internal divisions among ownership, may be influenced if a group of owners comes out and says the same things in a private meeting that Bettman’s been saying publicly. On the other hand, the owners may come to the realization that the chief negotiators among the players share Fehr’s point of view.

The bottom line is that this is a risky move for either side, but a move where the split of risk and reward clearly favours the NHL. It’s also a move that helps the NHL almost regardless of the outcome. That’s why they proposed it. If Fehr shot it down immediately, that would play to their message that he’s misleading the players. If the executive board and negotiating committee of the NHLPA opted to accept the meeting, the league could rightly place more confidence in its owners than the players could in their delegates. Finally, if the NHLPA does the most sensible thing and votes down the concept, the league simply gets to look like they’re trying to be creative while the players’ association is being intransigent. Representatives can also darkly hint that only Fehr’s influence swayed the vote, playing into the league’s whisper campaign against the NHLPA executive director.

Superficially, the NHL offer looks like an act of desperation, a creative attempt to solve the impasse in negotiations. In reality, it’s a carefully considered, almost Machiavellian move where the vast majority of outcomes favour the league, regardless of how the union handles it. It was a nice play by Gary Bettman.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

I see zero chance that the NHLPA accepts. How many players can even dream of a 5 year+ contract? Or backloaded mega deals? Not very many. How many even care about make whole if they have no contract or are a 1 year deal.

This would open the door for owners to directly appeal to the majority of the players who have zero to gain and are throwing away money and maybe even their careers being bullied into following Crosby and crew hang on to their $100 million.

I disagree this has anything to do with the NHLPA being scared that the owners are more business savvy and Fehr not wanting to put inexperienced people in the room with these super smart shrewd owners. I think it IS about the message getting through and that Fehr is worried that him and his elite circle of superstars won't be able to filter the message from the 200 guys whose entire careers on the chopping block the longer this goes on.

I dont care how much this favours the Owners. The players are fools and maybe they need some different voices telling them that.

They didnt want to lose 12% of their salary so instead they remained locked out until now when they've lost 25% of it purely on games lost. Bravo. Add to it the hilarity that is the fact the owners offered to "Make Whole" their contracts to ease the transition down to a reasonable 50% and I dont see why the PA is dying on this hill.

The 12% they didnt want to lose is out the window now. Gone, likely forever. And why? Some contracting issues?

5 year limits: Who does this affect? 5% of the NHLPA membership? Less? Preventing backdiving protects more members than it hurts.

2 year Entry Level deals: Tell me Nuge, Eberle, Hall, and Yak wouldnt get more money sooner if their entry deals ended a year earlier.

Putting UFA back one year: The size of the player's pie is fixed. They cant get more money than their share allows. And try to tell Danny f*%cking Heatley or Ryan Smyth they cant control which city they play in until they hit Free Agency.

At the end of the day the Union is supposed to be looking out for their players. Making sure they arent taken advantage of by the owners, but what it has become is an extortion league. The Players are in no danger of being screwed by the Owners. Their average salary has doubled in the past 7 years and they have a lot of power over the NHL.

This isnt the old days where players were being paid in the dark and owners kept them down. The owners are making them incredibly wealthy individuals. Individuals who have already acknowledged the need to get down to a 50/50 split and were offered guaranteed dollars during the transition.

He who owns the business.......gets to set the rules. If the players want to dictate the rules, they should start their own damn league.........if I don't like what my employer is doing, I have two options, state my case and hope they listen, or go get another job.

Until the NHL draws the proverbial line in the sand, and tables a final offer, the NHLPA will not negotiate a deal. They have to receive a final offer or the season will be cancelled type of offer, before they so anything!

I see this as more of an imformation session than actual bargaining. The players aren't going to agree to anything without counsel if they have this meeting but they would certainly have a lot of questions for Fehr afterwards.

This move would definitely favour the owners. Many of them are more respected than Bettman, and have established personal relationships with the players which they can lean on during negotiations whereas Bettman just has his sun-blocking machine and assortment of patented evil smirks.

If the players accept the proposal, if I was on their side, I would parade out every former player that's been critically hurt playing the game and ask the owners to understand that this is why cutting any existing salaries is a bad idea ("why did Eric Lindros introduce himself to me three times and then ask me to seat him and his wife [pointing to Claude Lemeuix] next to the kitchen?").

If I was on the owner's side, I'd have a giant clear vase with billiard balls in it on the conference table when the players arrived-- each black ball would represent one profitable team and each red ball would represent one non-profitable team. Each ball would also have a team name on it and represent at least 23 union jobs. I would ask the players to select the billiard ball that best represents the team that they play for (or most recently played for if they are UFAs). I would then challenge the players to a game of pool with the condition that if they sunk all the black balls first, we'd give in to their most recent offer. However, every red ball that I sunk before they eliminated all the black balls means that that team and those jobs disappear post lockout.

Interesting perspective. Of course you would just be accused of playing games and the meeting would end that instant. Opposing sides don't seem to matter to either. Its a me me me me me game they are all playing.

Don't generalize the intelligence of the players (there are some very intelligent players) or underestimate the passion for what they believe in (that's why they have lost income and in some cases careers). This is a win/win for the owners but they are going to win anyway. This will just tug on the hearts of those that just want to play hockey.

I completely agree that there are some very intelligent players. My argument is simply that on balance - by virtue of not just intelligence (which is debatable) but also by education and experience - such a meeting favours the owners.

I completely agree that there are some very intelligent players. My argument is simply that on balance - by virtue of not just intelligence (which is debatable) but also by education and experience - such a meeting favours the owners.

Before this whole process started the Owners had the advantage and that will never change. He who holds the stick does the beating.

This really does look like a move to circumvent Fehr. Obviously the man is good at his job and the NHL is getting increasingly worried the season, the momentum, and everything that has been built since the last Lockout will come crashing down with the resolve that Fehr instills in the players.

I think the owners are once again realizing they bit off more than they could chew with imposing the lockout, and are now getting a little frustrated and desperate.

However, with some recent comments by the likes of Hammerlick, it's also clear that Fehr may be false advertising his strategy and how long it might actually take. I doubt many of the players actually want to decertify, but are probably hearing that such a move will get them the concessions from the league they are looking for.

Perhaps if the players talk directly to the owners, some of the owners can demonstrate how the lockout is hurting them, while the players can do the same and both sides can come to some sort of agreement, without the two bosses in the room telling their teams to keep sticking it out.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Fehr brothers and Bettman/Daly are getting paid a lot of money during this process. What incentive do they have to get a deal done quickly? They're still able to pay their bills, while many players are no doubt starting to bleed red. Put players and owners in the same room together and see what can be accomplished. I have a hard time believing that ol' Sidney would be so quick to quip about 'the owners' unwillingness to negotiate with Mario in the same room.

The players have reason and the law on their side. On the other hand if 37 year old me were to negotiate with 22 year old me, 22 year old me would lose.

In any event the point of this isn't to separate Fehr from the players, it is to demonstrate to the players that the owners are united. How united they are changes nothing about how unreasonable their demands are. So long as the players understand the issues they have no reason to agree to the owner's offer because as it stands they are better off with no CBA than with a bad CBA.

If the players decertify and take this to court they are the betting favourites to win. Consequently, even if you care nothing for the morality of the player's position, as a matter of legality it is in the owner's interest to make a better offer.

JW, if Dubnyk is an example of the Player Reps, he has seemed very clueless about the negotiations and has basically said that they just listen to Fehr.

The other thing is that it tends to be the ideologues who volunteer to play that role. The guys who think they are coal minors in 1812. The business minded NHL players know that getting involved and offering up sane advice just sets you up for years of having to put up with the attitude of the more union minded folks - who are often brutish and annoying. At some point, a few average Joes in the NHL are going to be playing golf and start talking to one another about how the NHLPA is basically protecting the Crosby's but doing nothing for them. That might be a while though, so we may well lose the season.

The owner's haven't made the players wealthy. Hockey has made them wealthy. The problem with the owner's proposal is that (just like the last one) it is a bad deal for precisely those teams it is supposed to help. As a result it condemns the league to an economic model that does not work. So long as the only response from the league is that the players should take a smaller share of the pie every five years the players have every reason to resist.

By free market standards the players are significantly underpaid. The only justification for them agreeing to be underpaid is the economic stability of the league is a win-win proposition. However, these owner driven CBA deals are the main driver of the economic stability of the league.

So while I grant that economic stability is important for everyone, the owners as a whole continue to be their own worst enemy.

To take one small case in point, getting rid of long term contracts will drive up salaries on a yearly basis hurting the ability of small market teams to keep their stars, and yet we are supposed to believe that this deal is necessary for those teams to survive.

It is unclear if the players have either of those things on their side (Law and reason).

Decertification does equate to an instant win for the players at all.

Are you following the 67sound/Mckenzie twitter conversation on this? While it certainly isn't instant, and there is never certainty in court cases, the legal opinion appears to be clearly on the players side.

If you've been following along the past few weeks, and I'll assume you have, the reasons are pretty obvious. Entry drafts, salary caps, all of these are clear examples of anti-competitive behaviour. So, the NHL can only win by arguing for an exemption to the normal rules governing labour relations. Such an argument would probably be bases upon economic stability/necessity of the league, however that kind of claim is easily falsifiable.

The owner's haven't made the players wealthy. Hockey has made them wealthy. The problem with the owner's proposal is that (just like the last one) it is a bad deal for precisely those teams it is supposed to help. As a result it condemns the league to an economic model that does not work. So long as the only response from the league is that the players should take a smaller share of the pie every five years the players have every reason to resist.

By free market standards the players are significantly underpaid. The only justification for them agreeing to be underpaid is the economic stability of the league is a win-win proposition. However, these owner driven CBA deals are the main driver of the economic stability of the league.

So while I grant that economic stability is important for everyone, the owners as a whole continue to be their own worst enemy.

To take one small case in point, getting rid of long term contracts will drive up salaries on a yearly basis hurting the ability of small market teams to keep their stars, and yet we are supposed to believe that this deal is necessary for those teams to survive.

Finally, Omark is destroying the Swiss league full of NHL stars.

Ok, please explain how the players are being underpaid by free market standards. As I see it, the market of high skill professional hockey has been neatly controlled by an oligarchy to keep a restricted number of teams which can then hold cities 'ransom' to get significant concessions to subsidize their industry.

At the same time, by restricting the number of high skill professional hockey teams the NHL has greatly increased per team revenue. However, management led by billionaire ego in the 90s drove salaries through the roof. They are now facing the reality of that.

NHL players are rare, but they also have a very narrow area of expertise. Most of them would continue to play the game for 25% of what they earn now (if there was no choice).

I believe that a true free market based upon supply and demand would have resulted in a much greater number of teams with a much greater dispersement of talent. Essentially you would combine the AHL, NHL, and ECHL and that would be your league. Perhaps you would end up with a European system with tiers developing.

NHL players are rich because over the last century some very smart businessmen set up a number of institutions in the market to support THEIR model. They established agreements with municipalities, other leagues, the players, state and provincial governments, etc. that gave them tremendous power to influence the market. They have used this to market and grow the game to a point were it earns BILLIONS. Corporations buy tickets from sports teams like they are supporting a charity - do you think that happened because they like hockey?

Its the same for all professional sports, these are created systems, they are not necessarily natural phenomena of the market.

The players benefit greatly from this. THis is why they will not start their own league. For one, they would be exposed to financial risk (gasp!) and two, it would likely never reach the levels of the NHL in terms of revenue.

Help me with this. If NHLPA decerticication turns into reality, could the league fold and start up the New Hockey League? All previous contracts - player, television, etc. all become void? How messy would that be?

I'm not so sure the players would win. When half the league is going into debt and the players are doing better and better every year where they are consistently in the top 90 percentile and above for annual income in their respective countries. No only that the league and the teams have not mistreated the players in any way. Five Star Hotels, Chartered fights, meal allowances, and the odd trip to the Palm Springs to play golf and bond. All covered by the team owners. They have a better pension plan than 90% of the country on top of their inflated salaries. And I believe they even get a house allowance when they are traded to another team. Where exactly is the mistreatment by the teams????? Any court that rules in the favor of the players is just making a joke out of everything Union's were originally made for.

If the NHLPA were to decertify, as I understand, the league would essentially return to negotiating with players individually with no contract or spending regulations. This makes most people immediately assume that teams like NY and Toronto would again start to spend their riches on the biggest name stars available each and every year. But I wonder if there are alternatives to this absolute free market economy. Does the league require the payers to have a union to stage a draft each year? Couldn't the league more easily govern its player spending without a union fighting for more? ...So the union decertifies, what is there to prevent the league from setting its own internal rules. Have players become employees of the league, and place them somewhere. Many jobs are set up that way - either move, or change jobs.

I don't understand how decertifying a union can help the players, but if it's true, then it's probably time to get rid of the NHLPA

De certifying would likely end up saving a bunch of teams money in the end while also eliminating others entirely from the league. Ya you signed a big contract, guess what if you have a bad season they can now kick you to the curb and not pay a single dime of what left owed. I'm sure the players would love to be treated like that.

I dont care how much this favours the Owners. The players are fools and maybe they need some different voices telling them that.

They didnt want to lose 12% of their salary so instead they remained locked out until now when they've lost 25% of it purely on games lost. Bravo. Add to it the hilarity that is the fact the owners offered to "Make Whole" their contracts to ease the transition down to a reasonable 50% and I dont see why the PA is dying on this hill.

The 12% they didnt want to lose is out the window now. Gone, likely forever. And why? Some contracting issues?

5 year limits: Who does this affect? 5% of the NHLPA membership? Less? Preventing backdiving protects more members than it hurts.

2 year Entry Level deals: Tell me Nuge, Eberle, Hall, and Yak wouldnt get more money sooner if their entry deals ended a year earlier.

Putting UFA back one year: The size of the player's pie is fixed. They cant get more money than their share allows. And try to tell Danny f*%cking Heatley or Ryan Smyth they cant control which city they play in until they hit Free Agency.

At the end of the day the Union is supposed to be looking out for their players. Making sure they arent taken advantage of by the owners, but what it has become is an extortion league. The Players are in no danger of being screwed by the Owners. Their average salary has doubled in the past 7 years and they have a lot of power over the NHL.

This isnt the old days where players were being paid in the dark and owners kept them down. The owners are making them incredibly wealthy individuals. Individuals who have already acknowledged the need to get down to a 50/50 split and were offered guaranteed dollars during the transition.

Bah Hum-Bug

I've been debating how to respond to this comment because it makes a lot of good points, points that I agree with.

In the short-term, I don't think there's ever been any doubt that the players are best served by making the best deal they can get as quickly as possible. I also agree that players' lot in life is pretty good, and seeing as they have the money to get excellent advice I see no reason to feel bad for them in a labour dispute, even when the other side has an advantage.

On the other hand: long-term I think the players' collective financial interests are likely best served by decertification, and my read is that Fehr has been slowly, carefully, guiding them down that path. It's uncertain, and there are dangers, but freeing up team spending powers and removing the threat of a lockout are big incentives.

I don't see it as a move exclusively to discredit Fehr, but more a move to take the air out of the decertification balloon if the players turn it down.

How could the players go the decertification route if, when given a huge opportunity to negotiate with the owners without the NHLPA representing them in an official capacity (which is what they're saying they want when decertifying), they choose not to do so?

IMO it would turn any decertification ploy by them into a joke...and I'll bet Donald Fehr knows it.

Best benefits a select group of players you mean. If the lack of a Union causes there elimination of 5 or 6 teams, as has been projected, then a couple hundred players wouldn't even be able to find work if they wanted to in the league. Sure it would help the players who are already making more than everyone else on long term contracts but not the other guys. It would allow the owners to no pay for anything other than the salaries of the players no hotels or charter flights and they may even need to pay for their own hotel room. Incentives for the few but would destroy the majority. Losing 5 or 6 teams would likely bring a bunch of revenues down, media contract would be smaller as well as merchandise sales. I don't see the bonus really for anyone except the current and future superstars.

Decertification wouldn't cause any teams to fold. If anything it would help their bottom line because it would allow struggling teams to lower their payroll costs because they would no longer be compelled to spend to the salary floor.

I'm not saying the players should be paid more in the absolute. I'm saying the salary cap system as the owners conceive of it serves neither their interests nor the interests of small market teams. It forces them to act irrationally and take on bad contracts when these are precisely the teams that should be incentivized to find inefficiencies.

If hockey adopted a soft cap/luxury tax system, with sensible arbitration rules, with increased revenue sharing, and contractual restrictions that restrained salaries for young player as it does in baseball % revenue would stabilize between 50 and 55%, and almost all teams would be profitable.

The system in baseball works for everybody. Unless hockey finds a win-win system that works for everybody this is never going to end.

I'm cancelling my sports packages in a month if this thing isn't settled. TSN and Sportsnet have failed to pressure the NHL and NHLPA into settling this dispute, and they have failed to fill their airtime with a suitable alternative... AHL and/or CHL games.

I agree with most of what you said. The elephant in the room is that the NHL is subsidized heavily by public construction of arenas. However, that is irrelevant to the discussion of how the players and owners should divide up that subsidy.

I'm not suggesting the players start their own league. I'm suggesting that the principle of collective bargaining is precisely that it is collective. That means the owners have to offer things to the players that they want and when concessions are demanded they have to be combined with reasons. A collective agreement is not a hammer, and if it is used as a hammer it is rational for the players to decertify.

Obviously we can't know for sure until it happens but I don't see why most players would be worse off.

So long as hockey generates revenues and so long as revenues are tied to winning, hockey talent will be in demand. Third line players contribute to winning hockey teams and will still get paid. If it is rational to pay a third line player good money under a salary cap it will remain rational to do so without one.

The only contrary possibility is to suggest that the CBA creates an artificial scarcity of talent. I'm skeptical.

Finally, in a true wild west format as in European soccer, you'd see an increase in pro teams which would result in more jobs.

Decertification wouldn't cause any teams to fold. If anything it would help their bottom line because it would allow struggling teams to lower their payroll costs because they would no longer be compelled to spend to the salary floor.

I'm not saying the players should be paid more in the absolute. I'm saying the salary cap system as the owners conceive of it serves neither their interests nor the interests of small market teams. It forces them to act irrationally and take on bad contracts when these are precisely the teams that should be incentivized to find inefficiencies.

If hockey adopted a soft cap/luxury tax system, with sensible arbitration rules, with increased revenue sharing, and contractual restrictions that restrained salaries for young player as it does in baseball % revenue would stabilize between 50 and 55%, and almost all teams would be profitable.

The system in baseball works for everybody. Unless hockey finds a win-win system that works for everybody this is never going to end.

Sorry Capt. Obvious, but the minute you use MLB as the standard of what is best for the league and teams, you've officially lost me. I thought your arguments were pretty well stated until this point. MLB is a joke of a league where those teams with huge payrolls generally win year after year (or at least make the post season). Don't you remember the flood of talent that left Edmonton year after year because we couldn't afford to keep them? How frustrating was it to see non hockey markets like Dallas and others with deep pockets pillage the lesser lights like Edmonton year after year? How does this benefit the league? How does this benefit the sport? Baseball is a joke.

I agree with most of what you said. The elephant in the room is that the NHL is subsidized heavily by public construction of arenas. However, that is irrelevant to the discussion of how the players and owners should divide up that subsidy.

I'm not suggesting the players start their own league. I'm suggesting that the principle of collective bargaining is precisely that it is collective. That means the owners have to offer things to the players that they want and when concessions are demanded they have to be combined with reasons. A collective agreement is not a hammer, and if it is used as a hammer it is rational for the players to decertify.

I have no problems with two parties negotiating an agreement. I don't see it as a moral issue in any way. I don't care who makes billions and who makes millions and who doesn't. Both sides bring what they bring to the table and lay them out and then make a deal.

I don't have any problem with the players using their rights to decertify, nor would I have a problem with the league using replacement players. These are all legitimate actions.

I have supported the league in this because I think its best for fans to have a healthy NHL and the players will play regardless of the % they get. Eberle is not going to go back to school because he is only making $3 million. However, I think they probably have enough to settle now (the owners) and if the players have a trump card (and decertification is it), then they should play it and force the league to accept.

The risk is that the League is in as bad of shape as the NHL is saying (I don't believe it) and 3-4 teams fold.